


Belief With(out) Qualification

by lazarwolff



Series: Witchy Hermann [3]
Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Ghosts, Hermann is a witch, Honeymoon, Loch Ness Monster Denial, M/M, Scotland, Trans Character, Witches, newt is a medium
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-30 01:28:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18305390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazarwolff/pseuds/lazarwolff
Summary: Hermann's new husband is a dowsing rod for supernatural phenomena. Newt has no idea.





	Belief With(out) Qualification

**Author's Note:**

  * For [skeleton_twins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skeleton_twins/gifts).



Newton didn’t believe in coincidence; he preferred fate, fortune, and good vibes. He was painfully credulous and superstitious to a fault, though Hermann couldn’t help but smile at the silly things this brilliant man believed.

“Dude, you’re telling me Earth is terrorized by actual monsters of the deep for years, but you don’t think Nessie is real?” Newt said, eyes widening while they observed the loch Hermann just declared creature-free.

“A lovely story for children and xenobiologists,” Hermann scoffed but planted a soft kiss on Newton’s cheek. “And those of you who happen to be both.”

“You’re such a buzzkill,” Newt muttered. “She’s definitely in there, she’s just shy. I guess you don’t think ghosts are real, either?”

“Do I think we continue, in some regard, after we die?” Hermann postulated and pulled his heavy tartan shawl over his shoulders while he watched the lake. Newt had seen the shawl at a market this morning and immediately bought it, wrapping it around Hermann’s shoulders and declaring him glamorous. “That’s a given. No part of us disappears entirely, and I believe that must extend to whatever matter makes up our thoughts. But the idea that someone could be in such a skulk that they spend time immemorial in some gloomy house they liked, being a nuisance to the living?”

“You can make anything sound stupid if you try hard enough,” Newt huffed.

“It’s not stupid, dearest,” he said hastily. “Never that. I love that your mind has ghosts and magic, and monsters. Belief without qualification must be freeing at times. I’m afraid all that was rather stomped out of me before it could take root.”

“Your dad’s a dick, I ever tell you that?”

“You’ve reminded me on several occasions.”

Newt challenged Hermann on a level that perhaps he was not aware. The fabulous thing about Doctor Geiszler was how he could imagine and believe without seeing or knowing. But even he could concede he had never seen a ghost, and while Hermann took him at his word, he wondered how Newton didn’t perceive the various entities he attracted.

Hermann saw it first in Newt’s letters, wisps of things in the envelopes like feathers without spines, which tickled Hermann’s nose and dispersed when he tried to pick them up. And when he met Newton in person, something charcoal grey and vaguely human loomed over him, causing Hermann to lose all colour and Newt to get a very bad first impression of his penpal.

Newt was clumsy, spinning haphazard like a rogue planet, and he attributed his lack of coordination to a surprise growth spurt later in life, the result of hormone therapy. Hermann could see that part of the blame had to go to the spirits he attracted, constantly underfoot. They didn’t affect him emotionally or mean any ill will; they just seemed to like the little man. Hermann wondered how much of that had attracted him to correspond with Newton in the first place and then pushed that thought away. Odd to class himself with the other presences who stuck to Newt like flies to paper.

They were staying in a bed and breakfast for their Scottish excursion, and the house was quite old and built on older foundations. Wide-eyed, Newt asked the proprietress if it was haunted, and she promised them they were sharing quarters with no less than three discontented entities.

Hermann rolled his eyes, for he’d seen just one entity, and it hardly seemed discontented.

Travel frazzled Newton, and after their full day, he was ready for sleep. They’d reserved a room with one bed, and Newt wasted no time peeling off his socks and binder, before slumping on the duvet, face pressed into a pillow.

“Let’s stay here for the rest of the trip,” he proposed, voice muffled. “Got my hubby, got my bed. What else do we need for a honeymoon?”

“Your hubby,” Hermann repeated fondly. “I suppose now I can expect all kinds of endearments which aren’t my given name. Newton, we didn’t fly to Scotland just so you could have your filthy way with me in a drafty old house the whole time.”

“We… didn’t?” Newt shifted so Hermann could meet the full force of his brown puppy eyes. Hermann laughed and started unbuttoning his shirt.

“Not the whole time, anyhow.”

They fell asleep together that night, dreams and bodies entangled.

An ancient church’s clock struck three, and Hermann blinked awake and saw a still presence hovering at the foot of the bed. He swallowed, pushed back his irrational childhood rationales, and shifted from his sleeping husband.

“This room is occupied,” he said softly, so as not to wake Newton. The presence shimmered, like asphalt on a summer’s day. “Go on, leave us be.”

It shimmered  _ at  _ Newton, and Hermann smiled softly.

“All mine, I’m afraid. Have you loved?”

It helped sometimes, to remind them of what they lost. The presence faltered and disappeared with a pop of displaced air filling a vacuum. The physicist in Hermann desperately wished to quantify this phenomenon. How could something as non-physical as a spirit take up space?

“H’rm’n?” Newt mumbled. “Who’re you talking to?”

“Nobody.”

“Mmph,” was the eloquent response, and Newt threw an arm across Hermann’s chest before lapsing back into sleep. Hermann smiled again and shortly drifted off as well.

Newt was yawning at breakfast that morning, rubbing his eyes. Hermann stopped him from buttering his shirtsleeve instead of his scone.

“Are you feeling alright?”

“Yeah, sorry,” Newt said, stifling another yawn. “I had weird dreams.”

“Hmm.”

Hermann put on a serious look, and took off Newt’s glasses, folding them and setting them on the table.

“What are you…?”

“Shush.”

Hermann crossed his hands over Newt’s face, not touching, made three brisk successive motions, before he placed his palms, buzzing with magic, on Newt’s cheek, and kissed his forehead. Newt blinked.

“All better?”

“Uh,” Newt said, reaching for his glasses. Then he blinked again. “Huh. That’s weird, what is that?”

“Your dad didn’t do that for you when you couldn’t sleep, or couldn’t get up in the morning?” Hermann said with a frown.

“Nope, he made me warm milk and let me listen to the radio ‘til I conked out.”

“Oh. Mum said it was a trick all parents have.”

“Maybe it’s something only moms have,” Newt squinted. “But that can’t be right, because you just did it. You did a factory reset on me or something. Like, my jetlag is  _ gone _ . Thanks!”

They didn’t make a proper itinerary for their holiday. After years of living an increasingly regimented existence in the service of the PPDC, both Hermann and Newt were sick of schedules and didn’t wish to adhere to one on their honeymoon. They left the old house to explore the grounds, where Newt promptly managed to find and befriend several frogs, while the will-o’-the-wisps which populated the grounds blinked and shivered all around him. Hermann found himself making a little cross with his fingers in his coat pocket, directing the energy elsewhere. Though he was sure no harm could come of these curious spirits, they could be a nuisance if they became too numerous.

“We should see that little town,” he said. “I saw a bookstore which looked promising.”

“But I just found one of my people!” Newt said, holding up a salamander in the palm of his hand. “This is so cool, Hermann. I’ve never met such friendly little guys before. I think I love Scotland.”

They eventually managed to get down to the village, and Newt walked ahead to the bookstore. Hermann hesitated; he hadn’t seen that many presences there before, when he’d spared the building a passing glance.

“Perhaps, we should get something to eat instead?” he said uncertainly. Newt turned around.

“What’s eating you? Is it all the ghosts?”

“The… ghosts?” Hermann repeated, slipping into his schooled expression of disbelief. “Really…”

“Oh my god,” Newt groaned. “When are you planning on telling me you’re magic and shit? Our ten year wedding anniversary?”

Hermann opens his mouth to deny, and no noise comes out while he actually registers what Newt says.

“The Drift, dude. What’s mine is yours,” Newt explained with a tiny smile, tapping his temple. “Or did you think everyone sees Edward Gorey etchings and Ghibli blobs walking around?”

“I,” Hermann said, finally managing to find his words, “wasn’t trying to keep anything from you. There’s a gulf between my experiences and the words available to do them justice.”

Newt’s face softened, and he kissed Hermann on the cheek.

“But you can talk to me about it anyway,” he said. “It doesn’t have to make any goddamn sense. I know I am barely coherent at the best of times, it would be nice for the shoe to be on the other foot once in a while.”

“Thank you, Newton,” Hermann said, and then realized how deeply moved he was. He  _ had  _ been planning to tell Newton, in some manner, that he could see presences and thought he could make things happen outside the realm of practical manipulation, but he’d been trying to think of how to say it sensibly, to not sound cracked. He shouldn’t have worried, and wasn’t it a relief, to know he shouldn’t worry?

“Hey,” Newt said, seeing his face. “I didn’t mean to make you sad. If it’s better, I can keep on pretending like I just  _ believe  _ in ghosts, and don’t have an actual medium for a husband.”

“I’m not a medium,” Hermann corrected, “That term might be better allocated to someone like you…”

“ _ What?” _

“And I’m not sad,” Hermann continued. “I’m happy that you know, that you would be… receptive to knowing more.”

“Receptive is  _ massively  _ understating it.”

Newt took Hermann’s arm and linked it with his.

“Now let’s go to this haunted ass bookstore.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hermann is a more assured witch in this one! Working on what happens in between this and 'At Dark, Boil Water,' to make him like this. frawgkid is the tumblr, if you need to reach me re: witchy chaotician headcanons.


End file.
